


Of Sofas and Burgers

by angerwasallihad



Series: Behind the Curtain [8]
Category: Major Crimes (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, Mother!ship, trial by fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-06 06:59:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3125267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angerwasallihad/pseuds/angerwasallihad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sharon thinks about the new significance of both burgers and sofas in her life. May stand alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Sofas and Burgers

“Mom? Mom? Hey, Mom?”

The scene was still playing over and over in her head as she finally drove home that night. Sharon was still trying to figure out exactly how it had happened. She knew he hadn’t said it for her benefit. It had most certainly been for Jeff’s. She was not exactly sure how she felt about Rusty’s omission of all those details with a new friend, but that was an issue for another night, honestly. A large part of the reason--well, the reasoning she had used to convince Rusty at any rate--that she had adopted him was to give him the normalcy of a real family, to cut out all of the complications when it came to their relationship. He had had enough ‘complicated’ by the age of sixteen to last his entire life. Now she was trying very hard to allow him to claim that family normalcy without over-analyzing it.

‘Trying’ being the operative word.

Sharon told him as often as she could, now that she was confident it wouldn’t scare him away, that she thought of him as one of her own. Even before the formal legal procedures. She did her best to make sure he knew that she loved him, and that he was as much her child as Ricky or Emily, but even now, toed carefully around referring to herself as his mother. Even considering the fact that before today’s mildly entertaining display for Jeff in the murder room, he had himself referred to ‘his other mother.’ She was still careful.

She slipped up occasionally, of course. The first time it had happened, she had been completely blindsided.

“But as his mother--”

She stopped abruptly, taken aback by her own words and the expressions on Provenza and the Chief’s faces.

“As his guardian,” she amended immediately, emphasizing the last word, “I have a responsibility…”

After that, she had been more careful, particularly around Rusty himself. He was so adamant for so long that she was not his mother. The fact that he was no longer challenging it, sometimes even asserting it unprompted had to be significant.

And now, of course, she was thinking far too hard about the entire thing.

Sharon pulled into the parking garage and turned off the motor before getting out and heading through the doors to the elevator.

****  
  
  


She came in quietly, closing the door carefully behind her, dropping her keys gently on the table and flipping on a light. Rusty put on a brave face these days, and it did not bother him like it used to, but he would get this flash of panic, just for the briefest moment, when the front door opened unexpectedly, especially at night. Sometimes she missed the expression crossing his face; it was always so quickly stifled. And these days he did not pop his head out into the living room just to be sure it was her like he had in the early days. She thought it was a combination of his sleeping a little more soundly now and an ability to recognize her gait when her heels clicked across the threshold.

So when his head popped up from the couch, she stopped dead in her tracks, startled with a hand on her chest.

“I am NOT your child! Okay? And I won’t be here long enough to go to this terrific school of yours, and people like me don’t get into college, and we both know that.”

It seemed almost a lifetime ago that he’d uttered those words so vehemently at her from that same spot on the couch while she stood above him. A lifetime, but suddenly, in this moment, it was just yesterday.

“And you know, to remind you how bad you are at your job, I am going to be sleeping here--in the den, or the living room, or whatever you call this--until you get fed up enough to do something that is really going to help me.”  

So she had let him. A part of her--the part that was proud and optimistic about the journey she and Rusty had travelled together--liked to think that those first couple of weeks with Rusty, Sharon had allowed him to push back so hard without much resistance because she was trying to give him back his autonomy, allow him to reclaim his ability to make choices. And that was mostly true. It had been at the forefront of her mind, with all the articles she read and the prior training she had had about dealing with victims like Rusty. But another part of her, the more realistic and logical part of her was always reminding her that really, she had just been so tired of fighting.

Sharon had spent more than twenty-five years fighting. Fighting to be taken seriously by the force, Fighting to be allowed to investigate her fellow officers every day of her career in Internal Affairs, fighting for Brenda that last year, even when the Chief had nearly gone out of her way to be unhelpful. And Sharon had gotten used to it. She distanced herself from the rest of the force, fine-tuned that cold wordless stare, and made it all work. Until suddenly she was thrown into this new job, with this new young man thrown in the mix, leaving her despised and distrusted not only at work, but also at home. She had never had to fight so hard on all fronts in her life. And it left her exhausted. A little more willing to allow Rusty to walk all over her. And not at all willing to let him get close.

Thank God she had come to her senses.

“Hey! Hey, what are you doing? I still need those to study for that stupid test!”

She continued to angrily pile his books and clothes in the carton before her, fighting to keep her voice calm. “Your things don’t belong here. You can study in your room.”

“It is not my room!”

Tossing his shoes off the coffee table with disgust, almost relishing the ability to put this room back together, she turned toward him as she spoke. “But this is the living room, and it is definitely mine!” She lifted a wad of clothes from the couch stuffed in his backpack and pushed it into his arms adamantly. “And your stuff needs to GO!”

He tossed his plate of food down on the couch carelessly; a few potato chips shifted from the plate to the couch, and she could have screamed in frustration. He certainly knew how to push her buttons. Which of course was his intention. She knew that. But her composure was slipping.

“Alright, well then I’m gone too, how about that, huh? And I mean out the door!”

Sharon resumed roughly stuffing his wadded clothes into the backpack he had tossed in front of her again.

“You won’t leave. I am the best hope you have of finding your mother!”

Trying to pull herself back under control again, she stood up and let him stuff clothes and books into the backpack and lowered her voice again.

“Okay, look. I will try not to make unnecessary demands on you, but by ELEVEN PM, you are in that room!”

He looked up at her contemptuously.

“You CANNOT tell me to go to my room. I am not a CHILD, first of all, and second of all you are NOT my mother!”

Sharon’s frustration got the better of her again and she lost her cool.

“You’re right, I am not your mother. And how do we know that? Because I am HERE.”

They both froze at her words, neither of them quite believing they had come out of her mouth. They looked at each other for a long moment, Sharon watching that flash of pain cross his face at the reminder of his mother’s betrayal while mentally berating herself at losing control like that. She wanted desperately to take it back, but she couldn’t.

Calm once again, she finally spoke.

“I’m here. And your mother is not. And you’re going to have to try and make the best of it.”

He had stalked angrily away from her without another word, but he hadn’t slept another night on that couch. She had made sure of that.

“...You know, I don’t mind sleeping on the couch, if Jack wants my bed…”

“Ricky can have the room back while he’s here. I could sleep on the couch…”

Now, as the light from the lamp illuminated the room and she saw that he quite obviously was sleeping on the couch, she couldn’t help but think that something was terribly wrong. Had his use of ‘Mom’ earlier been some sort of warning code word that she should have picked up on? Did he no longer feel safe in his room for some reason?

She was overthinking it again, she knew.

Fixing what she hoped was a benignly curious smile on her face, Sharon stepped toward Rusty as he hushed an beckoned her quickly.

“Sh, sh, sh...sorry.”

Still startled and concerned, she approached the sofa with what she hoped was a curious and not panicked expression as she whispered, “Wha…? What’s going on?”

“The Chicago airport closed.” Rusty said quickly, “And Jeff already sublet his apartment. And he and his boyfriend totally broke up.” Sharon tried not to laugh aloud at the tone and expression of happiness on Rusty’s face at that last comment. “So, I told him he could crash here instead of a hotel.”

At a loss for words, she just looked back behind her towards Rusty’s room. Rusty had a guy in his bedroom.  “He…?”

Trying very hard not to overreact at the thought of a much older guy in her son’s bedroom, she turned back to him.

“Is that okay? You don’t mind, right?”

When she had brought that sullen, limping boy home that first night, this was not exactly what she had envisioned. Bringing guys home without any warning. She had opened the door to a teenage Emily and a boyfriend on the doorstep once saying a thoroughly non-verbal goodbye, walked in on Ricky and a girl she had not even had an inkling existed on the sofa--which of course had prompted a rather long-winded and uncomfortable talk about safety that she hoped she would never have to repeat--And once even on a drunken Jack and a woman in a bar. Though honestly, that last one had not been wholly unexpected.

This, though. She was at a loss.

Sharon was so proud of the way that Rusty had claimed his identity over the last few months. The boy who had sobbed into her shoulder about not being able to “fix it” was gone, replaced by this young man now comfortable and secure in the idea that he had a crush on a guy. Which of course, meant that she had done something right. If he felt at ease inviting anyone, let alone the guy he was crushing pretty hard on, to stay over without asking her or worrying that she would take him to the zoo the next morning, then she had really done something right. They had really moved on from any ambiguity in their relationship.

Coming to sit in the chair beside him, she stammered a little as she tried very hard to react in a way that would not spoil his newfound ease as more than just a roommate.

“Ah… Um… No. Not really. But why did you--why did you give him your bedroom?”

“Are you kidding? What if you’d walked in and found him on the sofa?”

“Oh.” She chuckled a little, slightly reassured that that had not been waiting for her tonight. She probably would have had a heart attack.

Rusty was moving on already, looking at her curiously as she started to slip her shoes off.

“Why are you so late?”

“I was hunting down an anonymous 911 caller that reported our murder.” Sharon set the shoes aside, stretching her toes a bit on the floor as she spoke.

Rusty’s face cracked into a broad grin at her words.

“That’s how we met.”

It was. She remembered it vividly.

Brenda had that look in her eye. It had been there all day. The one that Sharon had come to associate with a splitting headache and a fierce desire for a glass of wine. The look that generally preceded Brenda doing something catastrophic in terms of Professional Standards, but not wholly unexpected given Chief Johnson’s usual habits and practices. And Sharon was left to watch, just waiting for the inevitable other shoe to drop as Brenda chased the seemingly phantom scent of Philip Stroh.

“Uh, Captain, you might want to watch this interview. S’cuse me.”

So within minutes, Sharon found herself in electronics, gazing at a monitor displaying the face of a teen hustler she assumed was the anonymous 911 caller they had been discussing earlier. While Sharon settled herself in a chair in front of the monitor, next to Buzz, she could see Brenda doing the same in the interview room while the young man across from the Chief and Sergeant Gabriel was speaking unhappily, mostly directed at the Sergeant.

“It’s completely unfair! I mean, I call you guys, about a killer, attacking me with a shovel. And instead of going after him, you go after me!”

He looked young for eighteen, Sharon thought. A little scrawny with blond hair mostly covered by a black knit cap, wearing a grey sleeveless shirt that did not entirely hide the scratches to his arms and face. This kid, she decided, had had it rough.

Chief Johnson broke in, introducing herself now.

“Hello there, Rusty. I’m Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson. The LAPD just wants to protect you from a very bad man.”

Rusty leaned forward, his tone dark and unimpressed as he replied, “bad men are how I make a living. I hang out where all the bad men go. Bad men like to talk to me. And it doesn’t hurt anybody to listen.”

Sharon tore her eyes away from the screen, pulling her glasses off briefly to rub her eyes in dismay at the words. Eighteen was too young to know all the right answers. As Sharon watched, his eyes and voice betrayed him with those last words.

It did hurt someone to ‘listen.’ And he knew it.

Voicing Sharon’s own thoughts, Brenda replied quietly, “Not so sure ‘bout that.” She passed a file over to Gabriel as Rusty spoke quietly to Brenda.

“I’m not afraid of them. I can take care of myself.”

But Brenda was moving on, Sharon could see.

“I see you’ve met with the police before, they sent you over to DCS? Put you into foster care?” Rusty seemed to lose his calm at Brenda’s words, starting to look nervous and antsy to Sharon. “Why’d you run away?”

“Hate getting hit in the face,” Rusty replied with an attempt at coolness that wasn’t quite believable.

“It says ‘Department of Children’s Services’ here,” Gabriel said now. “I thought you were eighteen?”

Sharon’s heart sank at the words. She had thought he looked young for eighteen. Her mind wandered to Ricky as she watched. He had been like that as a teenager; snarky, sarcastic, with hair growing too long for her taste. Thankfully he had grown out of it. Well, mostly…

“Yeah, well now. Now, I’m eighteen. Back then I was seventeen.”

“It says here that you’re sixteen,” Gabriel contradicted him levelly, “and your last name is Beck. Is that right?”

Rusty stared stonily back at him. Sharon sighed deeply, looking away from the screen briefly. Sixteen was too young for all that. Way too young. She cringed inwardly at the unbidden image of sixteen-year-old Ricky, standing on a corner on Sunset now flashing before her eyes.

“I don’t need a last name.”

Unable to look away anymore, Sharon sat silently and watched as the boy on the screen attempted to stick to his story.

“Where are your parents?” Gabriel continued.

“I’m eighteen, so where my parents are--”

But Brenda, it seemed, had lost her patience. Again.

“You’re not eighteen, so we need to know where your--”

Rusty slammed his hand on the table in front of Brenda, and everyone, including Sharon in the electronics room, jumped.

“Okay, I don’t HAVE a father, and my mother left, okay?! She’s gone!”

“Gone where?”

Rusty looked almost defeated.

“Okay, you know what, I’ll just go over the whole stupid story again. So she and her jerk boyfriend dropped me off at the zoo and said that they would pick me up in a couple of hours, and they never came back. So I walked all the way to the apartment where we were staying at, and they were gone. And you guys aren’t even looking for her right now, so my mother is gone, okay? She’s gone!”

He was quiet for a minute, calming down slightly.

“It’s just easier if we all just pretend I’m eighteen.”

Sharon sighed deeply again, but didn’t say a word as Brenda continued the interview. She listened attentively as the young man recounted a scary encounter with a masked man and a shovel before his tumble off the cliff. It wasn’t until the cap came off to reveal the nasty bump on his head that Sharon let out a sound. A small gasp of dismay before she swallowed it quickly.

As Chief Johnson’s idea to lure Rusty’s attacker came together, Sharon finally entered the room and looked on without a word as Rusty pretended to talk on the phone while Tao snapped photos.

“Yeah, yeah, I hate the cops too… The service is terrible, and the food never comes!”

Sharon smirked a little at his words.

When they were finished, the two of them were left alone in the interview room as everyone else rushed off in different directions. She seated herself across from Rusty and handed him back his shirt. He took it from her without really looking at her, uttering a muffled “thanks” before slipping it back on. He didn’t sit back down, but started to pace on the other side of the table.

After about a minute of this, he looked up at her and their eyes met for the first time.

“Now who are you?” he asked baldly, stopping in front of her.

“Captain Raydor,” she said simply.

“So, are you gonna get me my burger? I did what you guys asked. And now I want my food.”

“I can make sure it’s taken care of, yes.” Sharon pulled out her phone as she spoke and typed into it briefly. “Now Rusty, don’t you want to sit down?”

He glared across at her, seeming suspicious.

“No. What I do want is my food.”

Looking at him now, sitting on the couch as he grinned happily over at her, she chuckled. Of course she remembered. It was as life-altering a day for her as it had been for him.

“Yes it is.”

It was hard to reconcile that angry, defeated boy with the confident, almost teasing young man before her.

They smiled happily at each other, both obviously thinking about how far they had both come until Sharon spoke again in a determinedly casual voice.

“So, um, Jeff’s a little bit older than you, isn’t he?”

He squirmed a little, tugging the blanket up his legs while he replied. “Eight years. That’s nothing.”

Sharon fought hard not to betray any of the dismay she felt. She remembered twenty-five year-old men. It was not a good memory. But, she relented, she also remembered being eighteen.

“Ah.”

“And I’m… very mature for my age.”

Sharon nodded, keeping her amusement to herself. No eighteen-year-old was that mature. But she liked the way they were able to just talk lately. It was one of her favorite things about being a parent: that point in time when their conversations were no longer about asking permission or her explaining what was expected, but instead talking like you would to a close friend. Granted, she had to reinstate the “Mom Voice” occasionally when it was absolutely necessary--as Ricky had proved during his last visit--but it was nice when they could just talk like normal people. She did not want to ruin it.

Grinning a little teasingly, she asked quietly, “So you gonna ask him out?”

“Well now would be my chance,” Rusty said quietly. “But,” his voice dropped to a whisper again. “What if he said no?” There was a touch of fear in his eyes.  “Then he might...stop wanting to get to know me.” Trying to sound nonchalant again, Rusty spoke normally again. “Not that it matters anyway. After tomorrow, he’s gone, so...” He trailed off.

Sharon glanced over at the still-bare tree, waiting for Ricky and Emily’s arrival in a few days. This was also the part about parenting that she hated: having to stand by and let them make their own mistakes, learn their own lessons. Especially when she knew how painful those lessons could be. “After tomorrow you have the holidays, and then you start college. There will be life after Badge of Justice, I promise you.”

Rusty looked unsure. “Yeah, but there’s not gonna be another Jeff. He’s--he’s one of a kind.”

This was shaping up to be one of those stories, Sharon could tell. The stories she would tell around the Thanksgiving table ten years from now purely for the purpose of good-naturedly embarrassing him.

She smiled reassuringly over at him. “Well then, that is all the more reason to ask him out, and see what happens” She got to her feet, bringing her shoes and purse with her as she turned back to the hall. Grinning at him again, she teased him one last time. “Goodnight, Beckin’!”

Her back turned, she wondered if her theory had been right, and if it really had all been for Jeff’s benefit.

“Goodnight, Mom…”

She chuckled as she heard him reply with equal playfulness.

Maybe not.

Before Sharon had taken more than a step or two, Rusty called out again.

“Hey.”

She turned, smiling, wondering if the absence of a ‘Sharon’ or ‘Mom’ in his words was significant. Was this the way he was sneaking it in, or was it all unintentional?

“Hm?”

Rusty looked more serious now.

“Are you sure Jeff staying here is not a problem?”

She tried her best again not to betray any of her discomfort at the surprise that had greeted her tonight. “Oh, it’s fine, really.” She smiled once more, confident that he was reassured, before turning and switching off the lamp as she exited.

* * *

“Anyway… You were right, asking him out was the best thing I could do, because now I know. But, like, having someone tell you straight to your face that they’re not interested… really sucks.”

Sharon felt really terrible for him. She did. But. She was unbelievably relieved that Jeff had done the right thing. She honestly was not quite sure she could have kept her mouth shut if this had gone the other way. And it had been rather amusing to watch him in the throes of this sort of crisis. His crises these days centered around college registration and asking a cute boy out rather than serial killing stalkers and murderers attacking him in Griffith Park.

She liked it better this way.

Still, she kept her face sympathetic. “The people we like don’t always like us back, I know, but the sooner you deal with the truth, the sooner you can move on.”

He looked back up at her, still clearly miserable.

“Yeah, but like, moving on is the hardest part.”

“Not moving on can be harder.”

If anything had reinforced that idea this week, facing down Jack most certainly had. Being on the other side of moving on now after so long, Sharon knew how much better it was to just face the truth from the start. And whatever she said or thought about allowing her children to make their own mistakes and learn the painful life lessons, that was one mistake she would make sure they never made.

Sympathetically, she continued, “Although right now, you probably feel a little…”

“Wounded? Crushed? Like I wasted whole weeks caring about someone who couldn’t care less?”

He really was quite miserable. Casting around for something to cheer him up, brilliance suddenly struck, and she voiced her idea a little playfully, hoping to get him to smile.

“Would a hamburger help you with that, Beckin’?”

It worked. He smiled a little reluctantly, almost rolling his eyes as he replied.

“Well, Mom…”

Sharon’s heart fluttered a little as he said it again, smiling a little in surprise and contentment.

“Couldn’t hurt. Couldn’t hurt…”

They got to their feet, and he held the door open for her, following her out.

Heading to the elevator together, she placed her hand lightly on his shoulder, just where his upper back and neck met, squeezing gently. He leaned into it slightly when they stopped in front of the elevator bay, his arm coming around her back in return.

She had been right, Sharon decided as the elevator sank down to the garage; this was a story that would stick. In fact, she thought amusedly, ‘the adventures of Beckin’ and Mom’ just might become the stuff of Thanksgiving dinner hilarity.

She certainly did not look at hamburgers the same way anymore.

There was a knock on the interview room door before it opened to reveal Gabriel, carrying a styrofoam box.

“Finally!”

Rusty stomped over to snatch the box out of David’s hands before tossing it on the table across from Sharon and finally sitting down.

Sharon and the Sergeant exchanged a look before David muttered, “That’s sorta like ‘thank you,’ but not.” He rolled his eyes. He turned to Sharon, speaking normally again. “I can stay with him, if you want.”

Smiling gratefully, she did not rise from her seat. “That’s quite alright, Sergeant. But I’m sure the Chief needs your help.” She glanced over at the boy digging into the burger and fries across from her and continued, “We’ll be just fine in here.”

When they entered the restaurant, Sharon pulled out her wallet and handed Rusty some cash.

“You know what I like. I’ll go find us a table.”

While he hurried off to the counter, she found an empty corner table and waited. She could see him standing in line to order, still with a slight slump to his shoulders as his eyes cast around the room, seeming to look for a distraction while he waited. After about a minute, his eyes found hers, and she smiled encouragingly.

“So, like, what’s the deal here? I eat my burger and then you guys just dump me again?” Rusty was wiping his hands on a paper napkin as he finished.

“No,” Sharon said softly, watching him push the trash to the corner of the table. “We could really use your help in catching the guy who attacked you last night.” She glanced down at her phone again, looking for an update on what Brenda was planning. Not that she really expected one. “But whatever happens, we’re not going to dump you anywhere. We will find you a safe place to live.”

The line at the burger counter shifted, and Rusty stepped up to the cashier, giving her the order and handing over the cash she had given him. He stepped over to the side for a minute while they filled the order, and he caught her eye again.

Thanks, he mouthed across the room at her.

Sharon smiled, shaking her head and waving her hand dismissively. Rusty turned back to the counter and picked up the tray of food waiting there.

“Look, lady,” Rusty glowered at her combatively, “I told the other one who was just in here. I’m not helping you until you find my Mom. And I’m DEFINITELY not staying anywhere unless it’s with my Mom. You bring her back, and I’ll do whatever you want.”

Rusty stopped in front of the table, setting the plastic tray in the middle and sitting down across from her.

“So, Mom…” he said, trying the word out again and pointing at the food before them, “that one is just the regular burger that you like, and then those fries we can share, I guess.” He started unloading the tray, dividing the food between the two of them. “Oh, and I got you this too.” He set a large white lidded cup in front of her.

“Well, Beckin’,” she said, matching his tone again, “what is it?”

Across from him in the interview room, Sharon nodded slowly. “Alright, Rusty. We will do whatever we can to find your Mom. I promise.”

“It’s a strawberry-peanut butter milkshake,” he replied a little proudly. “Like, I know you aren’t really the milkshake type, but you know, burgers are sort of my thing. And I thought you should have something that’s your thing tonight, too.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him, amused and a little touched. “And a milkshake was your solution?”

He rolled his eyes at her, picking up a fry. “Well, you did eat all the peanut butter at home the other night. It’s the best I could come up with tonight.”

Chuckling a little ruefully, she picked up the shake at last, holding it out in front of her. “Well, thank you, Beckin’,” she said as Rusty lifted his cup up to touch hers.

“You’re welcome, Mom,” he said, obviously a little amused as they both took a drink.

It was unexpectedly good, and as she sipped, Sharon thought that maybe, just maybe, she had at last kept that first promise to him.

She had found Rusty’s mother within a few short weeks of that first hamburger.

But now, years later, Sharon had finally found his Mom.

 


End file.
